


The Puppet and Its Puppeteer

by BrightBlueInk



Category: Chrno Crusade
Genre: Canon - Manga, Creepy, Demonic Possession, Gen, Manga Spoilers, Missing Scene, Ocean, Puppets, Spiders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-15
Updated: 2014-01-15
Packaged: 2018-01-08 19:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1136337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrightBlueInk/pseuds/BrightBlueInk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joshua desperately seeks information on his sister at all costs, even going against Aion's wishes--which only serves to make Rizel hate him even more. Meant to provide some backstory for Acts 19-21 (and also references Act 47 and Volume 6).</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Puppet and Its Puppeteer

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the LJ community 31_days for the November 2, 2013 prompt "Threads Of Fate" (although this was written too late and never published there).
> 
> This was originally written to be part of a set of short fanfics for NaNoWriMo 2013 focusing on Joshua--exploring relationships and character traits, filling in backstory and expanding on is character post-manga, etc. Of course I only wrote a few before I lost steam, but this stands well enough on its own!
> 
> Sometimes I get a little bummed that we never got to see Joshua and Rizel interact with each other, since a lot of Rizel's dialogue with Rosette hints at her jealousy toward him and a "work" relationship that is tense at best. This fic was meant to explore their possible interactions a little. I also wanted to try to practice writing Joshua with the horns, since I tend to fall back on writing post-manga Joshua since I'm more comfortable with him at that canon point. I purposefully pushed the creep factor with him as a challenge for myself and might have pushed a little TOO much. YMMV.

When Joshua looked out into the ocean, he could almost make out in the reflection of the water images of places and things he’d never seen. A blonde teacher with a stern voice but kind smile pulling her shawl closer around her shoulders as she helped a child sound out the words in a book. An angel with ethereal white hair surrounded by feathers as her wings molted away. A man in a white suit bouncing on the moon. The world falling to pieces. A ghost whose soul was eaten away like a coat left in a wardrobe for too long begging him to “look away! Look away!”

The trail of images always led to the same place. An island under the ocean, the cries of a newborn child, an image of lost dreams and dead promises and fire spreading through a cabin, and along with it the screams of the damned that built up into a crescendo of buzzing, squealing noise. The noise always snapped him out of his search with a scream, tugging at chunks of his hair until he ripped strands out of his head and either the roar of the waves approaching up the beach finally drowned out the sound or Fiore ran down the stretch of the beach and tugged him to his feet to get him back inside the house.

He knew he shouldn’t push himself—Aion had scolded him time and time again about his “searches” and the drain it had on his body—but he could never be satisfied until he could finally find what he was searching for. Sometimes, he could almost see her face. There’d be snow, and a tiny girl with pigtails grasping his hands, and she’d look up at him—but her face would be blank, and the noise would start again. 

The first time he’d hit that invisible wall, he’d grabbed the nearest object, a water pitcher, and threw it at the wall. It had shattered, the water had gotten all over a stack of books and ruined them, and Aion had given him such an unusually frantic and angry lecture that Fiore had tried to convince Joshua to stop his searches. It was only when he admitted “I’m looking for my sister’s face,” that Fiore had relented with a frown and made him promise to stay outside the house and away from anything breakable during them. (“Aion included,” she had added onto the end of her suggestion, in a slower and quieter voice than typical, which Joshua knew meant she was saying something she knew she shouldn’t.) Her suggestion was how he discovered the ocean’s ability to let him see more clearly, and the waves’ ability to drag his focus away from the noise.

On this particular day, the wind was oddly still and the sky without a cloud, which made the water in the ocean like a blank canvas. He’d never gotten this close to seeing her face. He could swear that he could almost make out the curve of her nose and the color of her eyes. He just had to push a little more against the veil and then he could finally see.

“You’re causing problems for Master Aion by insisting on opening your mind like that,” a woman’s voice hissed. The interruption yanked him out of his vision. He only realized, as he looked up at Rizel’s face, that he’d already been digging his fingers into his hair and that his eyes were dry and sore from how long he’d been forcing them to stare out at the sea.

“I wouldn’t cause problems for him,” he said simply as her eyes narrowed at him. “I’m not that stupid. I know my limits.”

“You are stupid if you think you can ignore Aion’s orders so easily.”

Joshua just laughed. “I’m not ignoring him! See, there’s nothing I can break out here. Nothing except you.” He gave her a cheeky grin that might have seemed only mischievous if not for the content of his words and the fact that both of them knew how many pursuers he’d already killed for daring to come after the Sinners.

“I’m not talking about the pitcher,” she said, “or me. That’s not what he’s worried about.”

“Aion’s too strong to worry about things.”

She shrugged. “Like I said. Stupid. You don’t even know what he ordered Fiore, do you?”

His eyebrows rose at the word “Fiore,” and she grinned. They both knew that it was an easy way to get his attention. He pushed himself up from the beach and brushed sand from his slacks. “What order? He gives a lot of ‘em.”

Her mouth spread wide, baring her sharp teeth in a triumphant smile. It reminded him of how he used to feel when he finally caught a fish on a line. The part of him that still cared about others felt a little sorry for the fish he used to catch. It wasn’t very comfortable being on the other end. 

“Are you sure you’re not too strong to worry?” she asked in a mockingly sweet tone.

“Just tell me.”

She hummed under her breath, pleased that he’d so easily taken the bait, and made a show of nonchalantly allowing a spider to crawl down her arm and onto her hand. She waited patiently as it reached the end of her long finger and started to lower itself off the tip with a thread. ”One of my spiders just happened to be in his room the other night. She was with him, talking to him about you and your little noise problem. He wasn’t happy. He said she was starting to become more and more useless in controlling you.”

Joshua knew she must be coloring some of the story with what she wanted to hear, since everyone knew how useful Fiore was to Aion, but he also knew that Rizel wouldn’t be so happy if some of it wasn’t true. She hated Fiore almost as much as she hated him, and was always pleased whenever Aion criticized either of them. “I can handle the noise as long as I stay out of the city.”

“Oh, you poor little human, trying so hard to control that strength that isn’t yours! I know you know that it’s not just the voices of others. Surely you can feel it--it’s Her voice. She’s drawing you in deeper and deeper and pulling the strings tauter and you’re all too pleased to dance for her if it means you get a morsel of power or a glimpse of whatever it is you’re trying to see. And Aion knows it, too.”

He sighed. She was starting to ramble again, and waiting for her to get to the point always made him impatient. “Are you going to tell me whatever it was that Aion ordered Fiore, or are you just going to talk about puppets for the rest of the afternoon?”

“I’m getting to it! Stories are never good if you rush them.”

“Your stories are awful. Get to the point.”

She clicked her tongue as her spider reached the end of the strand and started to crawl away from her. “He said she was poisoning your mind, and you were getting to the point that you were soon going to be beyond saving unless a better limiter was found. And he said that if they couldn’t find one in time that she would have to kill you. That she would have to lop your head right off, if she could, in hopes that some of your memories could still be read. Pandaemonium might be weaving a juicy morsel or two into your head, and he needs that information more than he needs you.”

His face paled, and she laughed at him, happy she’d gotten a reaction. “Fiore wouldn’t kill me. She’s mine.”

“She’s yours only because he says so. You’re useless to her if you’re useless to him, and if you open up your mind to Her any more there’s not going to be anything you could do to help him.”

Joshua shook his head. “I’ve been careful! He’s taught me how to use my powers, and Fiore said—“

“Whatever Fiore told you was just a lie to keep you calm,” Rizel interrupted with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“I’m a Sinner, just like you. He’s not going to just throw me away.”

She laughed again, louder and harsher than she had before. “You really are still just a naïve brat, aren’t you? ‘Sinner’ means nothing to him once you’ve tainted yourself with Pandaemonium. I’ve seen it happen before. It didn’t matter how much any of us loved her, or that he drove away his favorite toy! As soon as Pandaemonium’s voice crawled into Mary’s brain and she became Her puppet, his top priority was to destroy Mary, and he did. Without a second thought.”

He didn’t feel the spider on his neck until the bite. His body burned as its venom flooded his veins and his body went limp, hanging as if by an invisible set of strings. She kept his face under his own control so she could see his shock and horror as she walked toward him on her unnatural, stick-thin legs and wrapped her arms around his waist. “You might think that your place as his new favorite toy might have earned you some sort of special treatment, but you’re nothing in comparison to Chrono or Mary to him. You’re just a cheap replacement.”

The fingers of her right hand crawled up his chest and neck until it came to rest on his cheek, and to his embarrassment his hand reached up on its own to cover hers. She stroked his face with mock-gentleness, her voice syrupy sweet. He could feel a wave wash up onto the beach and pool around his ankles, but it was distant, as if it was in a dream, as the venom sucked away more and more of the feeling in his nerves. “I’m almost sorry for you. You’ve tried so hard to please him but it’s never enough, is it? You’ll never be as strong as he wants and expects you to be, and you’ll never be able to please him, not really. He’ll use you up, toss you away and move on to the next toy. Maybe he’ll replace you with that doll of yours. She’s probably tired of serving a boy like you day in and day out.”

“I’m not a boy,” he hissed, as her nail scratched a line across his cheek. His other hand rested on her shoulder, and a spider ran down along his arm.

“Quiet, and just let yourself be a puppet. In my control, you won’t open yourself up anymore. It’s much better if you’re my puppet than the Queen’s, don’t you think? At least you’d still have some use for Aion. Isn’t that better than being dead and never getting that strength?”

He knew he really shouldn’t do what he was about to do. Aion had given him strict orders to never, ever use his powers on one of the Sinners--but he’d also given Rizel orders to leave him alone, and neither Aion nor Fiore were here, so what else could he do? He hated these powers, but with the horns he could handle them.

He focused on what little feeling he could get from the tips of his fingers and called out to the power within himself. His fingertips started to glow, and then the glow spread to his hands, and then his arms, and then out across his body. She screamed and tried to pull back as the spiders running along his body started to burn, but he grinned and gripped her tight as soon as he could feel his hands again.

“You know,” he said serenely as his hands burned her skin and a pair of wings spread out on his back, “Aion didn’t give me these horns just because he thought it would be fun. I’m an Apostle. These wings aren’t just for show—they’re why I’m so much more useful than you are!”

“I get it! I GET IT! Get your hands off me!”

Joshua laughed, giving her a shove that caused her to lose her balance and fall onto the sand. It was great to see that stupid grin off her face as she tried to sense where he was. She was really stupid to not leave some spiders a short distance away so she could see him if he attacked her. Maybe Rizel thought that he was too lost in Pandaemonium to put up a fight? If she really liked Aion so much, you’d think she would’ve listened when he was gloating about how much the Pursuers were underestimating the Sinners, and lecturing on how stupid it was to underestimate your opponent.

“I really hate it when stories hint at stuff and don’t give a little exposition. I think you need to tie up a few plot threads.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” She tried to push herself up from the sand, but he grabbed her arm and pushed her back down. His right hand softly glowed, just warm enough to be uncomfortable for her legion, but not yet enough to do any damage.

“What’s a ‘limiter’? And why isn’t Fiore a good one?”

“He…he didn’t say.”

He focused more energy into his hand and she hissed in pain, jerking back. “But you have an idea, right?” he said.

“STOP IT! Stop it and I’ll tell you!”

“Bear with it. You had your chance to play with me, it’s not fair if I don’t get a turn.”

“Okay, okay! He said the doll couldn’t keep you stable anymore! I-I’m not a tech but a ‘limiter’ has something to do with stopping power from overloading a system, or something! He—he must think that if she was with you, you’d focus on her and you’d stop being dragged into Pandaemonium.”

“’Her’? Her who?”

The surprised look on her face was enough to know that he’d stumbled across a secret. She shook her head. “The…the limiter.”

Rizel was stronger than he thought, considering she was still resisting him. He tightened his grip on her arm and sent a big jolt of energy against her skin. She frantically tried to pry his fingers off her arm. “An Apostle, or someone with some other sort of power?”

“No! No, your sister! Your sister is the limiter!”

That was better information that he ever could have hoped for. He cut off his powers and dropped his hand to his side, barely noticing the wound on Rizel’s arm as the new information tumbled through his head. “I thought Aion said he didn’t know where Chrono took her.”

She was quiet for a moment beyond a whimper as her legion started to slowly grow new skin over the burn. “I found one of the Magdalan Order’s men following you in San Francisco and brought him back to Aion. He took a while to break but Aion was able to get the truth out of him. She’s at the Order on the east coast. She joined them after you were taken and has been looking for you. He’s there, too.”

“She’s looking for me, too?” He was so happy that he almost allowed the tears welling in his eyes to actually fall. Almost. He wiped them away on his sleeve, grinning from ear to ear. “I knew she would. I knew she missed me.”

He might’ve let himself continue to sing her praises, but a cough interrupted him. “Congratulations,” Rizel said before he could continue, trying to sound more confident than he knew she felt. “I hope that information was worth it. I’ll tell him what you did with your powers and he’ll lock you up for a month without so much of a page of those shitty books you spend all your time with.”

“No, you won’t. You’re going to get my sister instead.”

She snorted with contempt and narrowed her eyes. “Are you joking? What makes you think I’m going to do you any favors after what you did?”

“I know you think I’m stupid, but I don’t expect you to do it for me. You’re going to do it for Aion.” He grinned and settled on the sand next to her, his eyes bright and his tone chirpy as if he was talking to a schoolmate and not a demon he’d just attacked. 

“I know where that branch of the Order is. It’s where they said they were going to send me. It’s right outside of New York City. The train goes right there, doesn’t it? Hide yourself on a train and get her onto the next train back to California. I’ll tell Aion that I was the one that planned it and ordered you to go—then he’ll realize I’m still the one in control of my mind, not Pandaemonium, and you’ll get back here with my sister, and he’ll think you’re useful, and I’ll have my sister back and everything will be the way it should be.”

“It can’t be that easy.” But her tone revealed that she was considering it.

“Come on, in a city like New York? Think about how many puppets that would be!” He let out a weirdly childish giggle, the sort that he hadn’t let himself do around anyone besides Fiore in years. “It’d be a fun show to watch. I wish I could see it.”

Rizel was quiet for a moment, but when she spoke again Joshua knew he’d won. “I can’t believe you’re making this much sense. You must be having a good day with the noise.”

“Of course I am! I’m not anywhere near the city and I told you that I have control, didn’t I?” He tapped his temple. “It’s as clear as the ocean in here.”

“Don’t lie, brat.” She rose up on her spider legs with a growl, then turned her back and began to walk away.

“Where are you going?”

She glared at him over her shoulder. “None of your beeswax!”

He grinned, waved, and bent his face down to a spider that Rizel thought he hadn’t notice crawl nearby. “Have a safe trip.”

\--------------

“Hello? Is this important?”

“I’m afraid so, Master Aion.”

“Fiore? What is it? Is he getting worse?”

“No. He says the ‘noise’ is fine today. But he was bragging to me during dinner. He says he ordered Rizel to go on a mission that he planned all by himself.”

“Hah! Are you sure he’s not making that up? Rizel never listens to him.”

“I think she must have. The only signs of her in the house is a spider spinning a web in Joshua’s room, and another on the porch.”

“Well...that’s a surprise. Did he say what his grand plan was?”

“He wouldn’t tell me the details, but…he said she’s going to get his sister in New York.”

“…Fiore. I told you not to tell him until I’d decided how I was going to bring her here.”

“I know, Master. I apologize—I didn’t tell him. He must have overheard or been told by someone else. Would you like me to inform Rizel through her spider to return?”

“Hm. No, actually. His idea isn’t a bad plan. Genai and Viede are busy, and this is the sort of job that suits Rizel’s skills. As long as she’s careful, she should be able to fetch Miss Christopher without too much trouble. I’ll contact her and let her know to inform me if she needs any assistance. Otherwise, don’t interfere beyond asking her to move her spider out of Joshua’s room.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Oh, but also tell Joshua that he’s to inform me first before he makes any more plans. Be stern. He’ll get big hair if he thinks he got away with this without a lecture.”

“That’s not quite right. You mean ‘a big head,’ don’t you?”

“I meant what I said!”

“Of course, Master. I apologize.”


End file.
